Task Sensitivity in L2 English Speakers' Syntactic Processing: Evidence for Good-Enough Processing in Self-Paced...

Area of Science:

• Psycholinguistics
• Second Language Acquisition
• Cognitive Science

Background:

• Sentence processing can be shallow, especially in second language (L2) acquisition.
• The Good-Enough approach posits that shallow processing occurs when task demands allow.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how varying task demands affect sentence processing in native (L1) and L2 English speakers.
• To determine if L1 and L2 syntactic processing are similarly modulated by task difficulty.

Main Methods:

• A self-paced reading task was employed with English native speakers and native Chinese L2 learners.
• Participants read ambiguous sentences under different comprehension question conditions (deep vs. superficial).

Main Results:

• Task difficulty significantly impacted reading times at disambiguation points for both L1 and L2 participants.
• Attachment choices in globally ambiguous sentences correlated with reading times for both groups.

Conclusions:

• Syntactic processing in both L1 and L2 English is modulated by task demands.
• The findings support a unified view of shallow processing for L1 and L2 speakers, consistent with the Good-Enough approach.